They quickened pace and Simon shot a glance at each window as they passed, fearing to see a face there. Then he saw it — the door of his vision. He was breathing a little hard as he paused before it, not from the exertion of pace, but rather from the turmoil inside him. He raised his fist and rapped on the solid portal.

When there was no answer he was absurdly disappointed. Then he pushed, to encounter a barrier which must be backed with bars.

“You are sure this is it?” Koris prodded.

“Yes!” There was no outer latch, nothing he could seize upon to force it open. Yet what he wanted, what had brought him there, was on its other side.

Koris stepped back a pace or two, measuring the height of the wall with his eye.

“Were it closer to dark we could mount this. But such a move now might be noted.”

Simon threw away caution and pounded, his assault on the wood that of a drum. Koris caught at his arm.

“Would you rouse out the Duke’s companies? Let us lay up in a tavern and come back at nightfall.”

“There is no need for that.”

Koris’ ax lifted from his shoulder. Simon’s hand was on his gun. The door showed a wedge of opening and that low, characterless voice had come through it to them.

A young man stood in that crevice between wood and brick. He was much shorter than Simon, less in inches even than Koris, and light of limb. The upper part of his face was overhung with the visor of a battle helm, and he wore mail without the badge of any lord.

From Simon he looked to the Captain, and the sight of Koris appeared oddly to reassure him, for he stepped back and motioned them within. They came into a garden with brittle stalks of winter-killed flowers in precise beds, past a dry fountain rimmed with the mark of ancient scum where a stone bird with only half a beak searched endlessly for a water reflection which no longer existed.

Then another door into a house, and there the stream of light was a banner of welcome. The young man pushed before them, having sped from the barring of the wall door. But another stood to bid them enter.

Simon had seen this woman in rags as she fled from a pack of hunting hounds. And he had seen her in council, wearing the sober robes of her chosen order. He had ridden beside her when she went girt in mail with the Guards. Now she wore scarlet and gold, with gems on her fingers and a jeweled net coifing her short hair.